Mark DeRosa is out for the season. No kidding!

Posted on June 22, 2010

Mark DeRosa #7 of the San Francisco Giants bats against the St. Louis Cardinals during the game at AT&T Park on April 24, 2010 in San Francisco, California. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle and Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News have Tweeted within the hour that San Francisco Giants left fielder Mark DeRosa will have season-ending wrist surgery. What took so long for everyone to decide to get this done? The Giants signed DeRosa to a two-year $12 million deal in the off season. The big problem is that DeRosa had wrist surgery over the winter and things didn’t go so well, making it look like the Giants got damaged goods.

Of course when DeRosa started off the season batting like Bruce Miller by hitting weak ground balls and lazy fly balls everyone said he was fine. But if you knew anything about baseball and how badly a wrist injury can hurt a guys ability to hit the ball hard and yank line drives into the corner you could tell that something was not right. Pro sports teams will NEVER admit when a player like DeRosa is hurt. All public comments will say that he is fine. Normally that strategy works, except this time DeRosa went against tradition and told the media that the left wrist surgery he underwent last year was a “total failure” in early May. The surgery he had on Oct. 26, 2009 to repair a torn tendon sheath in his wrist had not worked.

As soon as DeRosa went public that his wrist was still a mess and he could not hit worth a damn it was apparent to me that he needed to have surgery quickly so he could have enough time to rehab the injury and be ready for spring training in 2011. However, the Giants and DeRosa for some reason though he might be able to rest the wrist, go though some minor league rehab games and come back to help the Giants. No chance.

DeRosa seems like a great guy. He is terrific during his weekly radio show on KNBR and is supposed to be a great clubhouse guy. However, you can’t help the club in the tub, and after he signed the big free agent deal with the Giants they need to have him for at least one season, even if it is not till 2011.

All the Giants and their fans can do now is hope that DeRosa’s surgery to repair his tendon sheath in his left wrist will be successful. He also needs to have his carpal tunnel “released” to allow for better nerve conduction, as he has had nerve problems in the same wrist.

I was looking forward to watching DeRosa play this year. I did not have a chance to photograph him much since his season ended so quickly. I hope I have the chance to shoot a healthy DeRosa in Scottsdale next March.